Friday March 30, 2012, 5th Floor Cathedral of Learning
1. 9:00-9:45 Digital Textualities, Rm 501
Moderator: Jean Bessette
Gabrielle Kirilloff, “Traversing the Tree: Exploring Ontological and Pragmatic Approaches to Markup in Digital Literary Studies”
Kristin Antosz, “Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me (or, Eat Your Words): Reading in an age of screens and hyperlinks”
2. 10:00-11:00 Truth and Fiction in Memoir: Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Rm 501
Moderator: Lauren Campbell
Christian Bergbauer, “Wright and Personal Freedom”
Johlize McNeill, “Richard Wright‟s Black Boy and Its Critics”
Lindsey Osborne, "Truth, Fiction, and Legitimacy in Richard Wright's Black Boy"
Kathleen Shaughnessy, “Richard Wright‟s Ambivalence toward Emotion”
3. 10:00-11:00 Constructions of Power in Paradise Lost, The Mysterious Stranger, and Death Note, Rm 512
Moderator: Racheal Forlow
Lauren Schmeer, "A Fixation on the Rib: Womb-Envy in Milton‟s Paradise Lost”
Brittany Whoric, "Twain's 'Satan': Power and Morality in The Mysterious Stranger”
Vincent Mok, “Claiming Equality with Death Gods: Dissemination of Knowledge and Popular Culture in Death Note”
4. 11:15-12:30 Cultural Controversies: Past and Present, Rm 501
Moderator: Peter Moe
Kristin Vermilya, “Is the Audience in Danger? What's at Stake through the Reality of Crime in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
Heather Sellew, “'A Wit Lent from Heaven but Vices Sent from Hell'‟: Christopher Marlowe, Morality, and the Modern Antihero”
Kelsey Miller, "I've Got 99 Problems: Linguistic Consequences in the Trans-mediation of Hip-Hop"
Michelle Nathani, “Working Class Humor in England: From Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to Ricky Gervais' The Office”
5. 11:15-12:30 Gender in Context, Rm 512
Moderator: Katie Homar
Kelly Lenhart, “Eating Disorders, Femininity, and the Identity Void in Postcolonial Literature”
Ryan Henderson, “Gender, Compromise, and Adaption: Okonkwo as Role Model and Colonial Reflection in Things Fall Apart”
Samantha Levinson, “Kristeva the Philosopher and the Woman: The Interplay of Psychoanalysis and Gender Roles in The Old Man and the Wolves”
Joshua M. Patton, “The Redeemable Mr. B: Re-evaluating Reward in Richardson‟s Pamela”
12:30-1:30 Lunch. During the lunch, undergraduate literature students are invited to speak with graduate student moderators and committee members about their post-college job and school experiences.
6. 1:30-2:30 The Question of Belief in American Poetry of the 1920s, Rm 501
Moderator: Jonathan Gotsick
Seonaid, McNabb, “The Search for Certainty in 'The Waste Land'‟: Science vs. Religion in the 1920s”
Taylor Wegmann, “'Only in darkness is thy shadow clear'‟: Hart Crane‟s American Myth”
Daniel Malinowski, “'Wide Water Inescapable': Wallace Stevens and the Gulf Between Perception and Belief in Some Poems in Harmonium”
Magda Esposito, “Frost and the Conflict between Science and Religion”
7. 1:30-2:30 Revising Childhood, Rm 512
Moderator: Jessica Isaac
Tracy Zimmermann, “The Exceptional and Wise Child: The Case of “Adult-Children” in Roald Dahl‟s Matilda”
Natalia Holliday, “The Misunderstanding of Miss Independent: Reanalyzing Representations of the Disenfranchised Orphan through L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables”
Samantha Harper, “Romantic Children: Peacefully Solitary, or Just Plain Lonely? An Ideology Critique in The Secret Garden”
8. 2:40-3:40 Cultural Crosscurrents in the Literature of the Roaring Twenties, Rm 501
Moderator: Elizabeth Oliphant
Kaeli Hood, “To Stand in the Middle of a Thing: The Post-War Identity and Nature”
Sean Matusin, “Consumerism and Commoditized Rebellion: Dissecting the Authenticity of Flappers, Feminists, and Flaming Youth”
Hayavadhan Thuppal, “Primitivism and the Mask of Civility in O‟Neill‟s The Emperor Jones”
9. 2:40-3:40 Irish Writers, Irish Identities, Rm 512
Moderator: Brad Fest
Morgan Emery, “Joyce‟s Choices: Irish Nationalism vs. Feminism”
Andrew Cauley, “Let the Comedy Begin: An Existentialist Interpretation of Samuel Beckett‟s Endgame”
Bethany Kapp, “Seamus Heaney: Digging towards an Irish Identity”
10. 3:45-4:45 Gothic Alterities, Rm 501
Moderator: Alexandra Valint
Alexandra Cathcart, “The Spectacle of Catholic Idolatry in The Monk”
Bryon Becker, “Blood of Colonization: The Condemnation of Empire in Bram Stoker‟s Dracula”
Emily Hanser, “Marjorie Lindon as the Gothic 'Other'‟ in The Beetle”
11. 3:45-4:45 Politics and Aesthetics, Rm 512
Moderator: Dan Barlow
Christopher Comer, “Fortifying Redemption: A Discussion of Representation and Ideological Formation in American Drama”
Lena Frey, “Modernism in the 'Self-delighting' Language of Irish'Troubles Poetry'”
12. 4:50-5:50 Senior Thesis Showcase, Rm 501
Moderator: Lori Campbell
Jacob Robbins, “Can You Feel It?: Modernist Emotional Resonance Across Jazz and Literature”
Geoa Geer, “Seeing through Victorian Eyes: Rosamond & Mary Garth”
Becca Stern, “From Where did Langland's Jew Emerge? A Study of Medieval Literature”
5:50-6:30 Closing Reception, Rm 501
Remarks from Shalini Puri, Director of the Literature Program
Presenters will receive their book center gift certificates
Please join us for conversation and refreshments!